


every story is a memoir

by Buttercup_ghost



Series: death of the author [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (well. four days until a month but close enough), Aha I don’t know how to tag this, Canon Compliant, Character Analysis, Character Study, Depression, Disturbing Themes, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Existentialism, Gen, I dunno I think that’s about all I have to say, Implied/Referenced Dehumanization, Introspection, Lowercase, Mental Health Issues, Meta, Metafiction, Originally Written 01/08/20, References to Depression, Self-Hatred, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, but isn’t that what shirogane is? what drv3 is? a bunch of existential crises in a trench coat?, canon typical shirogane things, low key was having a existential crisis when I wrote this, shit’s fucked, so I’m just gonna be done and post it, this has been sitting in my drafts finished for a month, vent - Freeform, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:48:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22172824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buttercup_ghost/pseuds/Buttercup_ghost
Summary: “every word she writes is killing her, tearing up her soul, scraping it out of her being and splattering it on the page, all guts and gore but no glory. she digs the hole and keeps digging, until she’s looking through eyes that aren’t her own, down at the grave that holds her plain dull life, wondering why she never understood that death of the author meant she’d become someone she never wanted tobe,onlyemulate.the narrator is her, and the narrator is junko, and shirogane tsumugi is dead, buried in the ground in a tomb she made herself.”(at the end of this story, tsumugi shirogane was always going to die.)
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: death of the author [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596013
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	every story is a memoir

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the artist is absent: davey wreden and the beginners guide](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/548980) by innuendo studios. 



> the beginners guide is such a good game but I always have a vague existential crisis when I watch it 
> 
> the nature of art and fiction is an enigma within our own minds. that might be why drv3 resonated with me so much, and shiroganes expression at the end got to me; because unlike junko, she wasn’t smiling. and that feels important. it feels like it says something. 
> 
> it feels like, in a way, I can see myself in her—in that face, as she waves, frowning and without a mask. her lies gone. her fiction, crumbling. her final preformance.
> 
> faced with death; and she can’t bring herself to smile.
> 
> and that feels like it _means_ something. and nothing at all.
> 
> (nothing at all, because she is still shirogane, the ringleader, the mastermind, the author. and nothing’s changed at all. nothing about that expression, mirroring my own, changes anything at all. she is still shirogane tsumugi; and so there is no redemption, because there couldn’t be, because she still has blood on her hands. so maybe that expression means nothing at all. because why should it matter, if she didn’t smile? why should that matter to me? — but I keep thinking about her face, before she dies. I keep thinking about how she didn’t smile. and I don’t know why, but when she’s facing her death, in a weird, ill defined way, that somehow feels hyper-real; I relate to tsumugi shirogane more than I ever have to shuuichi saihara—and I do relate to him, his anxiety and fears, but... I’m a writer at heart. and sometimes I think, maybe that says something about me, too. and I’m not sure I like what it says.
> 
> but she looked lonely.)

when she starts the script, she’s beyond happy. 

the words flow effortlessly, pouring from her as she smiles wide and excited. she loved stories; loved danganronpa, loved seeing its tales unfold, loved the characters and stories and ideas. and she loved writing, loved adding her own pieces in the beautiful, incomplete jigsaw. she loved it.

(didn’t she?) 

fiction, from a very young point in her life, has always been there. when she had no one else, the characters had proped her up. she’s seen herself in them, had them as companion, weaved stories in her mind of them that soothed and brought her to sleep. 

she carved them, crafted them, and rebuilt them in her image; rebuilt _herself_ in their image, sewed costumes she could hid away in and acted like people she wasn’t. (she didn’t want to be herself.)

(and there was no one else.)

she loved them—dearly, passionately, _desperately._ she could identify with them and their struggles, could see the fiction for what it was; a reflection of truth, reality, a funhouse mirror. (a mirror all the same— _she could get lost in the distortions._ )

and so, she wrote. wrote about them, and this world she fell in love with. she wrote about it, so different from her own, dull life. stories were interesting—and her favorite part, hope always wins in the end. (it’s just escapism.) 

no matter the trouble, there’s always at least a little bit of hope. the world rebuilds. the people heal. tragedy is prevalent, but it is not _permanent._ the killing game is just that; a killing game. it isn’t forever. (you can never play a game forever.)

but, she supposed, she also loved, that here, in fiction, it kinda is. repeating and repeating like a comforting melody: there is hope there is hope there is _hope_. no matter how many times they say it’s the last game, it continues. even if team danganronpa stopped, the fans would continue to write, and write, their own oc’s becoming apart of the tapestry. the original author of the first game may be long gone—may be dead and buried in the ground—but within his art, his legacy, he lives on. (meaningless beautiful words. when will death take you, shirogane? and what will you leave behind?) 

hope continues to win. triumph continues on.

maybe we all just want to feel like we can win. like there’s hope.

(we can’t. there’s not. we make our own despair out of words and hope and vague concepts that lose all meaning, turn into ash in your mouth that parades around nothingness, masked as profound. you don’t know anything; there is nothing to be known. there is no meaning in victory. there is no purpose in stories. there is no reason for life.)

and maybe that’s just want she wants; that fantasy, that purpose. (if she didn’t have this then she had nothing.)

the words are easy. they come as if she was a vessel—a sink pouring water.

(or a slit wrist spraying blood onto the page.)

she likes to think that if she writes this masquerade, becomes a character within it, maybe someone will adore her story like she had others, admire her with awe. maybe not love, but surely, surely—it means something all the same. right? it means she’s real. if people see her, that means she’s real, more than the characters she writes. doesn’t it?

(this is a autobiography. this is a conversation with herself. she is the author and narrator and reader, talking and yelling and crying all the thoughts she can’t speak. this is a cry for help, towards people who cannot do a thing. _sit down and listen_.)

* * *

the words have never come easy. she had never been happy. that’s a lie; that’s the truth. they flow from her fingers like nonsense, but they scrape against her insides until she is hollow.

she fancies herself a puppet master. (she’s just another puppet; it seeps from the cracks in her marionette skin, dolllike porcelain, and the funhouse mirror cracks as it distorts her—or does she distorts it?) she ties red strings to her fingers attached to plastic limbs, weaves it, moves them around with a wave of her hands, twisted around like a cat’s cradle. they tangle around her pinkies and ring fingers; and fate traps her as much as any, a double sided noose that ties them all together. she controls how they move yet she’s more caged than them any, those strings always on her fingers even if she tries to run. she is the author. to write is her job.

and it tears something, because she cannot stop. because she wants to speak and be heard. because she loves listening. because she wants to hear a story that makes her think, “maybe it’s okay that I’m alive.”

she needs it.

she cannot stop. (it’s as unthinkable as never using your fingers—they move without her consent and suddenly there’s another story under her, typed up on a page and _she wants to stop-_ )

(there would be no meaning if she stops, because then there would be no one to create it. she defines her world with man made words, sounds as meaningless as baby babble if not for the meaning we keep assigning to them. everything has to have meaning, every mystery must be solved, every word have a purpose. how can we live without?)

but that’s okay. that’s okay, because she will dedicate herself to her craft, give herself completely, like a proper artist, like the billions of others that came before her.

(until there is nothing left of her.)

* * *

and you see, here is the point in the story where I must confess: I hate stories more than anything.

feels good to finally admit it, doesn’t it? 

_relieving._

* * *

(and she’s still nothing special, is she? even if she gives her all to something. 

there’s so many stars, it’s hard to keep track of a single one. even when they die, sometimes people don’t even notice. they don’t realize when they burn out in a glorious blaze of self destruction, burning brighter and brighter than they ever had. they don’t even _realize._

no one will remember her name, just like how no one will remember one single star in a sea of them.) 

* * *

_~~hello? can you hear me?~~ _

_~~why do you keep ignoring me?~~ _

_~~why do you hate me so much?~~ _

_~~you’re going to have to get up and live sometime. you know you have to. you can’t keep hiding in stories forever.~~_

_~~please.~~ _

_~~why won’t you just listen to me?~~ _

**~~st **op** fucking ignoring me, coward.~~ **

* * *

she writes the script in a month; whole and complete, _(like she’ll never_ _be_ ) every caveat covered. working herself in a frenzy, she writes and writes and pulls at her hair in frustration. none of these words are _right._ it’s not what she wants to say. it should be better. there is not enough words on this page, and it isn’t insightful.

she writes it anyways.

if she makes someone feel something, gain something - doesn’t that mean _she’s_ worth something, too? 

doesn't that mean she doesn’t have to _hate herself_? 

* * *

( _you said you hate fiction._ _but_ _if_ _you hate it, then why do you keep writing? why do you keep reading? why do you keep lying, saying you love it?_

_why are you still here, shirogane?_

_— because_ _I can’t stop. there would be nothing left if I stopped._ )

* * *

to write is to become; to pretend is to be.

every word she writes is killing her, tearing up her soul, scraping it out of her being and splattering it on the page, all guts and gore but no glory. she digs the hole and keeps digging, until she’s looking through eyes that aren’t her own, down at the grave that holds her plain dull life, wondering why she never understood that death of the author meant she’d become someone she never wanted to _be_ , only _emulate_. the narrator is her, and the narrator is junko, and shirogane tsumugi is dead, buried in the ground in a tomb she made herself.

(it’s all empty.

these words are just sounds.)

to write is to die; to kill yourself with each word, and redefine your corpse into compost. 

(that’s why she loves it—that’s why she hates it.)

~~(maybe, one day, flowers will grow.)~~

* * *

and the voice invades, a question she wishes she could stop wondering: 

_who, exactly, **are** you?_

* * *

(as she waves goodbye, she finally understands it. her intent never matter, her words damned her. she can’t find it in her to smile. she is the author. this is her death. it’s simple. it’s tragic. it’s almost a _relief._ )

( _she can’t find it in her to smile._ )

( **splat**.)

**Author's Note:**

> tsumugi shirogane character study? in this day and age?
> 
> yeah, I know. I know.
> 
> I know.
> 
> (I once likened shirogane to a fanfic writer, with how she takes a different universe and writes her own beloved casts into them, then puts them through pain, to resonate with her own. and I said it as a joke, but sometimes I wonder if it rings truer than I meant it to. because—I just wrote that writing was as easy as slitting my wrists and letting myself bleed onto the page. and I wonder why I said that, and I wonder why I can’t bring myself to take it back, delete this and bury it as a unposted google docs, because I feel like I’m saying too much, and I feel like I’m not saying enough, and I feel like none of these words even matter, and I feel like I’m dying with each one I write, with each one I read, and I’m really, really tired. but even still, even with all that, I love writing more than anything. I can’t help but think it—we are not meant to see ourselves in saihara, solving mysteries and trying to end our beloved danganronpa; we’re supposed to see ourselves in shirogane, and her desperate attempts to continue the story, to cling onto a franchise she loves, even if artistic integrity dies in the cogs of capitalism. she makes the stories—she doesn’t solve the mysteries, she defines them. I can’t help but hate her for it.
> 
> but she looked so _lonely._ )
> 
> (and maybe I can’t help but hate her for that, too.)
> 
> -
> 
> SO OOF. I wrote that. That’s a thing I wrote.
> 
> okay, before anyone comments anything, I do want to say! I wrote this story, and the notes above and in the beginning when I was going through a depressive episode. It’s been about a month since I wrote this, including the notes, and I couldn’t really bring myself to delete it, nor post it. I feel it’s mainly because of these notes; they’re both true, and not true, at the same time. I feel like, they add to the experience, and message, I was trying to get across, though. They invoke the feelings I wanted to cultivate, and they’re the words I said, that I wrote, when I wrote this. These are my words. And to some degree, I feel like even saying this is taking away from it. But I also feel like I have to clarify, because it feels dishonest not to.
> 
> I couldn’t bring myself to delete these notes—not just because I feel like they add to the experience, but because it would feel too sad, to. But just leaving them like this felt sad, too. So I’m left here to compromise, with this nebulous feeling, with my own intent and emotions, my own thoughts. And I guess that’s kind of the point. There’s no easy answer or set thing, I guess. And I feel like... it’s important, these words. They say something, and I’m not sure I can not say it, without sacrificing some part of me. 
> 
> When I wrote this... I feel like... it was sorta like that thing, where how things you find fun aren’t, when you’re in a bad headspace. i love putting pieces of myself on the page—I love that. I love saying something; writing something. I always have. But when it gets bad, putting pieces of myself, here - it feels less like sharing, and more like sacrificing; more like dissecting my soul and leaving bloodied pieces on the page.
> 
> So I don’t really know what to do with that. Because it’s not true. Not really; writing doesn’t feel like that, most of the time. But when it does, it feels like it’s only ever been that, and only ever will be, and it hurts. And it’s worse, because I still love writing, and I still want to write. That love and desire doesn’t fade; it just turns into something more self destructive. And I love analyzing things, thinking deeply about a story, or character - but when I get like that, it’s the same thing as with writing. It’s exhausting, and hurts, and feels like I’m killing something, instead of creating. Like all I can do is touch things I love with my fingers, and watch them crumble to dust; over-analyze until it’s dirt. And I don’t really like to feel like that! But most of the time, the only way I can express my words and feelings and thoughts, are through story telling. And it can be productive, venting through stories... and I feel like this story was necessary, because of it. Even if it’s just spinning my heels, even if it’s.... slightly destructive, in a way. Maybe that’s okay; maybe destruction is a part of creation, and dirt is just a opportunity for plants to grow.
> 
> And maybe what I’m saying here, too, is apart of the art; maybe I’m destroying the bleak ending of my old notes, and creating something more hopeful. And maybe that means something, too.
> 
> I don’t really know what I’m even really saying anymore, though. (And maybe that’s the point, too. Or maybe even looking for one is reductive. Who knows? Maybe the author and reader are both as clueless as the other.)
> 
> And maybe that’s why, I added that line, about flowers.


End file.
